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Topic: Yet another spore-ish BBS (Read 79783 times)

Planet spore forums has two now and I'm determined for GS not to be outdone! (plus I'm bored)

This one's a little different, It's a silicon based life form:

In a sea of very cold ethanol on a strange planet float a number of small (say 1/4 of an inch diameter) drops of sillicon based 'oil' insoluable in the chilly alcoholic sea, they have no minds and do not percieve the more complex beings which share their planet and currently survive by absorbing minute traces of sillicon compounds from the 'water' (as I will refer to it from now on). When they get big, low surface tension causes them to split into two or more smaller droplets and they have little control over their own movement. They also have very simple 'cell organs' which synthesise the compounds they require. As a droplet splits, it is evident that a change is present in the offspring, what is it:

A: The new droplets absorb huge amounts of heavy matter from the water and sink to the sea bedB: The droplets have little trapped pockets of gas which cause them to float to the surfaceC: The droplets become very thick and greasy and can 'swim' through the water at will by deforming their gooey bodiesD: The droplets grow a crust of oxides which makes them rigid free-floating spheres

i choose D, since i want them to grow into crystals, not breast implants.

Logged

I have been toldnot by one but two of my loversthat I've got a heart of goldbut I'm unable to share it with othersThey call me a poet who'll never have a poema tiger with no taste for boneI'm the wonderful wonderful wizard who's waltzing alone

I have been toldnot by one but two of my loversthat I've got a heart of goldbut I'm unable to share it with othersThey call me a poet who'll never have a poema tiger with no taste for boneI'm the wonderful wonderful wizard who's waltzing alone

The new offspring rapidley absorb traces of mineral oxides from the water to form a rigid but all in all pretty weak shell. These offspring reproduce in a different way to the parents, the shell is permeable to the liquid outside, but almost none of the matter inside can get out, as a consequence when the inside gets too big, the shell ruptures and some of the liquid leaks out as offspring. Since the shell has been split, the organism has time to grow before it reforms and as a consequence bigger specimens can reach up to an inch in diameter before they die. The seas the 'blobs' inhabit are also home to the Trk (pronounce terk). Large sacks of fluid supported by thin fibres which radiate out of the central body and snare prey for the creature, the fibres are capable of contracting like muscles and many Blobs are caught and consumed.A Blob ruptures and releases a number of tiny droplets before it is ensnared by the Trk, whats odd about the new droplets?

A- They have short tendrils which extend from the centre of the body and emerge from the surface of the drop (note: these will be encased in minerals when the droplets mature and become rigid spikes)

B- They have a very thick crust which would afford protection from the floating Trk but would also cause the droplets to sink and not encounter the Trk anymore anyway.

C- They have small rotating 'paddles' which allow them to swim slowly

D- They absorb huge amounts of flourine, chlorine and other volatile gasses in an expandable bladder which make them lethal to any current predators and bouys them to the surface

Hey Krakow, just wondering, did you take classes in chemistry or something? cause you seem to have some knowledge of it.

Yes, im doing A-level chemistry at the moment, but the contents of this story are total sci-fi, i got the idea of living droplets from a thing I read about how scientists are trying to create a life-like substance (one that replicates, grows and posseses some method for inheritance) in the form of small oily droplets, the method by which our blobs reproduce in the first stage is identical to the way the oil drops are supposed to multiply. Other than that i'm just naming chemicals that this planet is abundant in and making things up

The offspring have an expandable sack in which dissolved gasses collect from the water, this causes them to float to the surface of the sea and brings them into closer contact with the Trk, when the Trk try to eat these drops they rupture the gas bag and recieve a dose of noxious gasses, the Blob is killed too but after a few generations the Trk learn to leave the Blobs alone. Unfortunately floating on the surface has brought our blobs into contact with the Dirig, the dirig are corpulent creatures which resemble hot air balloons with an arcade grabber arm on it. These monsters float over the surface of the water with a huge gas filled baloon and grab abything they can get a fix on with their large prismatic eyes. They are the only creatures currently immune to the gasses contained in the Blobs and soon many Blobs are eaten every day. What happens next?

A- The next generation of blobs are toroidal (donut shaped) and can propell themselves forward by siphoning water through the hole with contractions of their body

B- some blobs are swept up in a freak whirlwind and dropped into an inland lake.

C- The blobs have even more massive gas bladders and absorb lighter than air gasses more efficiently allowing them to escape the water and float at the same level as the Dirig, escaping their grabbing arms

D- The shells of the blobs become stronger and more flexible meaning they often slip throuhght the fingers of the Dirig

A generation of Blobs buds off with huge bloated gasbags pushing the total size of the mature adult to around 3 inches in diameter, the young droplets live in the water until theyre shells form and their gasbags inflate, then they leave the water and float serenely above the waves. This presents a problem since they can no longer just strain nourishment from the water, several generations die shortly after their first budding but eventually a new tactic arises, several blobs have developed thin tubules which penetrate the shell, these easily puncture the thin skin of the dirig and allows them to suck out the weak gassy fluid within, they need to suck vast quantities of the liquid to sustain themselves and the dirig is almost always killed by the vast swarms of floating blobs. but thats not a problem since the dirig are everywhere, eventually the two populations reach a stable pattern. Nice one! The blob have risen to the top of the food chain in a mere few million generations, i wonder what effect this will have on their ancestors The blob are still at the mercy of the winds, how are they going to move around independantly?

A- Gas vents, a controlled version of a punctured balloonB- Rocket thrust! Bear in mind that this will send their feeding requirements way, WAAAY upC- Adjustable sails and rudders (kind of dull so if you pick this theyll get a secret MYSTERY BONUS, but I havent thought of what its going to be yet)D- Abandon the skies, increase mass and size by a factor of 3 and roll around on the sea bed (predicted votes= 0 )